RE: How do you calm down the hot-heads?

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Fri Aug 29 2003 - 17:51:10 MDT

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    Robbie wrote:
    > On Thursday, August 28, 2003, at 09:17 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
    >
    >>> I hope you can see why this is unrealistic. In a world full of
    >>> cowards, evil brave people take advantage.
    >>
    >> ### A coward is a person who does not fulfill expectations it terms
    >> of the willingness to face danger, including a failure to perform
    >> according to previously assumed obligations. A world of persons who
    >> fulfill contracts would not be a world of cowards.
    >
    > So according to you it's acceptable to be brave ONLY when fulfilling
    > contracts.

    ### It is necessary to be brave only when fulfilling contracts, a subtle yet
    important distinction. Non-contractual bravery may not be demanded - only
    freely accepted obligations, such as in a contract (by definition, a
    contract exists only in the absence of force or fraud) can be enforced.

    ----------------------------
    >
    > Will it be your (15th century) opinion that citizens have a contract
    > with each other implicit in their organization as a country by virtue
    > of their birth? Dusting off the REALLY old books, huh?

    ### No, I explicitly reject the idea of the social contract. A contract may
    exist only between sentients, to a much lesser extent between groups of
    sentients, never between monopolistic (state, oligarchy, etc.) wielders of
    power and individuals. A contract must be explicit to be enforced.

    ------------------------------

    >> Such people
    >> will assume risks according to a rational analysis of possible
    >> outcomes, design societies and themselves by recourse to game
    >> theory, ruthlessly destroy defectors and face death if needed - but
    >> only if needed.
    >
    > Right, they'd be brave. Not only would the face death if needed, but
    > they would kill if needed. We agree, you just don't like to call a
    > spade a spade - These "calm, smart, relentlessly rational, long-term
    > thinkers" who are willing to "face death if needed" are just brave.

    ### I'd rather think that what I refer to is not bravery, just rationality.
    "Bravery" is a term too burdened with tribalistic, gory images. The
    Invariants in "Golden Age" (John C. Wright) are not brave, merely calmly
    rational, incapable of fear, incapable of bravery. This is my ideal.

    ----------------------------------
    >> Death to the brave!
    >
    > That's awfully hotheaded of you.

    ### Yep, I am not perfect (yet).

    ----------------------------
    >>
    >> Whenever you project the outcome of "goodness" far enough into the
    >> future, it becomes either identical with self-interest (however
    >> defined), or else descends into incoherence.
    >
    > Will you be giving a formal proof of this or do you have it on God's
    > authority? Well, you did leave "self-interest" open to be defined any
    > way you want so your statement here could be equivalent with "Whenever
    > you project the outcome of goodness it becomes identical with
    > goodness" which is clearly so, but not apparently what you're
    > claiming. To give this any sense at all you're going to have to
    > define self-interest. It's doubtful that you could do this without
    > reference to goodness. cf. Principia Ethica.

    ### It is not my prerogative to define other sentients' self-interest for
    them. I can however hypothesize that it is, similar to mine, the achievement
    of whatever goals they act to achieve, ideally in the presence of sufficient
    information needed to evaluate those goals in reference to other goals they
    strive for. Therefore, "goodness" is for me getting what humans really want,
    and the ideal society is the one that best serves the achievement of the
    average Rawlsian human's goals, including my own personal goals. Goodness is
    then defined in the context of my self-interest, not the other way around.

    --------------------------------

    >
    >> Calm rationality, and a long-term outlook are all
    >> we need to make the best world there can be.
    >
    > Doubtful. Calm rationality and long-term outlook has made this world
    > the way it is NOW. Is this the best world there can be? (in something
    > more than a tautological sense.)

    ### Today's world the result of calm rationality and long-term outlook?!!!!!

    You really meant it?

    Rafal

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